The Barclays Developing Resilience Award: BRE

Award Type:

Highly Commended for Business in the Community's The Barclays Developing Resilience Award 2019.

BRE: Test-case house proves that making homes resilient to floods is possible

20,000 visitors to BRE Innovation Park

The purpose of BRE’s Flood Resilient Repair House is to prove that properties in risk areas can be designed to cope with the impacts of flooding, without looking out of place as a normal home.

“Property measures can help prevent flood water ingress into a building or aid rapid recovery and allow householders to simply wash out and disinfect after flooding, rather than requiring wholesale replacement of the fabric or the property.” ​Dr Peter Bonfield, former Chief Executive, BRE

The demo property has features that can be installed in a home to make it flood resilient. BRE is keen to show the market that there should be a shift in the way buildings are retrofitted with equipment after a flood, as well as to showcase how houses in flood risk areas should be designed.

The house features: water resistant insulation in the walls; sockets and switches placed higher up the wall; kitchen appliances mounted at worktop height; membranes installed under the floor and in the walls to divert water towards drain channels around the perimeter of the room. The water is then pumped outside.

The BRE house stands as a case-study tool, helping to train property flood resilience surveyors. The property has also been used to help develop industry guidance, such as the CIRIA Code of Practice for Property Flood Resilience in the UK.

The 20,000 visitors who come to the BRE Innovation Park can explore the property, which demonstrates how flood resistance and flood resilience measures on a building can work in tandem.